HEBRON, N.D. — When a small town’s cafe closes, it loses more than a business.

It loses a workplace that provides jobs for locals and sales tax revenue for the city’s coffers. It loses what sociologists call that “third place” — that welcoming public spot besides work and home — where neighbors can gather, communicate and connect.

It loses its community table.

So when the western North Dakota town of Hebron lost its Wagon Wheel cafe in late 2023, the locals lost a lot.

“It was like the town meeting hall,” says Jane Brandt, long-time editor of the Hebron Herald newspaper. “Everybody went there every morning and had a cup of coffee, so when we lost that, you could just see the difference in the community. You lost connection. You lost communication.”

Yet even before its doors closed, ci

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